Oh These Saturdays
by Min Daae
Summary: We all have hobbies, Caranthir was fond of saying. Kurvo plays the stock market. Maedhros likes to make himself miserable catering to mortal cravings for overly flavored drinks. It's a thing. The AU where the Feanorians have been reincarnated into the modern day, Maedhros is a barista, and everything is still very dysfunctional.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Notes: This one's a gift to leavesinwinter. I dearly hope you do not mind my coopting your request to write a brainworm that had been in my head for a while. I am a big fan of elves-in-modern-day, and the only thing I like more than transplanting everyone wholesale into modern settings is putting them there when they don't know what they're doing._

_I am also a fan of family clusterfuck dynamics, but hey, look, this one sort of gets better?_

* * *

"Matt. Hey, _Matt!_" He realized, abruptly, that someone was waving a hand in front of his face, and jerked back, startled. "Dude, you okay?"

"What? Oh, yes, of course," he said, quickly. Leah frowned dubiously at him.

"Really? Cause you defs just completely checked out. Are you sleeping enough? Are you getting sick? I told you if you were getting sick-"

"I don't get sick," he said automatically, and then frowned, and added, "I think." He summoned a smile that felt false even to him. "I am fine, Leah. Stop worrying for me."

She scrutinized his face. "Your dark circles have circles. Are you sure you're all right? I can find someone to cover if you need a day off…"

It had been the ships, last night. Blazing in the dark like beacons of his failure to do what he should have. The first fire. The promise of all the rest that would come.

"No, thank you," he said firmly. "I will be fine. I am fine. I promise you."

~.~

It was what he told everyone. Maedhros had begun to lose track of the number of times he had said those words, or nearly. _Don't even ask, _Caranthir had begun to say with disgust when it came up, _We all know, Nelyo's _fine.

But then, Caranthir always sounded angry, the same way Curufin hardly spoke at all and Celegorm oscillated wildly between explosive temper and brooding twins were locked in their room together almost every hour of the day. And Maglor…

_Maglor's gone, _Caranthir said, harsh and flat. _He's not coming back. Sooner we all get used to that, the better. _Celegorm had yelled at him for that.

_He'll come back, _Celegorm insisted. _Just wait, he will, he won't have abandoned us. _

_I don't know, _Curufin had drawled, barely audible. _If you were he, wouldn't you?_

Maedhros sometimes wondered if this was his punishment. That he must watch them all fragment like this. To be denied the peace of Mandos that he had chosen. _I wish you were here, Kano, _he caught himself thinking sometimes, and hated himself for his selfishness. Fingon deserved better.

He'd been ready to die. He'd known what to do with death. This world was chaotic and confusing and too loud and too – _much. _

But it was what they had.

Caranthir was sprawled on one of the couches when Maedhros returned, reading a magazine with a startlingly busty, mostly naked human woman on the cover. He glanced up, and then turned his head and yelled up the stairs, "Nelyo's home!"

Maedhros rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Was someone looking for me?"

"Uh-huh. Tyelko." Caranthir rolled his shoulders back. "Oh, fair warning. He and Kurvo got into an argument this afternoon. I'm pretty sure I heard something break."

Maedhros sighed. "Break what," he asked, tiredly. Caranthir raised his eyebrows.

"What," he said, "No commentary on how weird it is that those two, of everybody, were fighting?"

"No," said Maedhros tiredly. "Not really. What were they arguing about?"

"Damned if I know." Caranthir turned the page. "One thing I can say for Men now is that they've got at least a few good ideas." He held up the magazine. "You ever read one of these, Maitimo?"

He could feel a headache coming on. "No," he said, not quite shortly. "No, I haven't. Are they upstairs?"

"Unless Tyelko's flung himself out a window, I assume so. Curufin's in his room again. Locked the door. I checked. I swear he just sits up there sobbing about how our damned _father _isn't here-"

"Stop it, Moryo," Maedhros said, sharply. "You don't need to be spiteful."

"Why not," Caranthir asked, slapping the magazine down on the coffee table. "It's all I've got left, isn't it? All any of us've got. Does me better than you, anyway."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Maedhros snapped, and Caranthir rolled his eyes.

"You're a damned mess, Nelyo. Don't think I can't see it. Everyone can see it. Our next door neighbors can see it. _How's your brother, _they ask me, _he looks pale, he looks tired. _Let me sum it up for you, Nelyo: you look like shit."

"What do you expect me to look like?" Maedhros said, voice rising. "Trying to deal with the lot of you, this isn't what I-"

"What you wanted?" Caranthir said, and his voice was loud and brassy and strangely vicious. "Surprise, Nelyo, this isn't what any of us wanted, this isn't anyone's Valardamned idea of fun, but would you rather be dead?"

_Yes, _Maedhros thought. _No, _he knew he was supposed to say. He hesitated too long for either. Caranthir made a disgusted noise and flopped back, putting his magazine over his eyes. "All of you," he said, voice dripping with disgust. "All of you are just…"

Maedhros left him there. Whatever the end of that sentence was, it couldn't be worse than what he called himself.

~.~

His job did not pay much. They did not, strictly speaking, need the money. Maedhros simply liked to feel…productive.

_We all have hobbies,_ Caranthir was fond of saying. _Kurvo plays the stock market. Maedhros likes to make himself miserable catering to mortal cravings for overly flavored drinks. It's a thing._

It was good work. Simple, fairly mindless, and he liked the smells. Leah, his manager, was kind, and patient with his struggles to understand the electronic parts of the job. He got to watch the people as they moved through, different faces, voices, some polite, some less so.

He daydreamed, sometimes, that one day he would look up and it would be Maglor there. Ordering a latte. Giving him that small, crooked smile.

It never was.

~.~

He went to speak to Curufin first.

Knocked on the door, and waited. When no answer was forthcoming, he knocked again and then tried the doorknob. It turned easily and he stepped inside. Curufin's back was to him, sitting on the windowseat with a book cracked open on his knee.

"Maedhros, I presume. If you wish me to apologize, I am afraid I must disappoint you yet again." Curufin's tone was acerbically dry.

"Kurvo-" Maedhros bit his tongue. "…I just want to talk."

"Oh, that's _all. _Such a relief."

"It doesn't have to be some odious ordeal. Can't we just…"

"We have never 'just talked,' Nelyo. Only ever when I had done something you objected to. We are brothers, but we were never friends. That has not changed."

That stung, no matter how true it was. And it wasn't unfair, he knew that. He'd been busy for much of Curufin's childhood, distracted by other matters. By the time he'd been paying attention, Curufin was already aloof, closed to almost all overtures. That had only become more true, with time.

He sat down on the bed after hovering awkwardly a moment more. "What did you and Tyelko argue about?"

"I fail to see that it is any of your business. And we did not argue. We…_discussed. _You know how Tyelko gets."

"I know how _you _get."

Curufin's head turned and he looked directly at Maedhros, finally. "Oh? How _do _I get?"

Maedhros rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I don't – that's not the point. I didn't come here to scold you, or start a fight, or-" He stopped. Took a deep breath to collect himself, and rubbed the bridge of his nose again. "—I'm sorry. I just want to know what's going on."

"Just want to fix everything," Curufin corrected coolly. "Put us all to rights. Everyone getting along. Yes, Nelyo, I know what you want."

"Is that so much to ask?"Maedhros asked, and then shook his head. "Don't – just. What did you and Tyelko _discuss, _then?"

"I don't want to _discuss _it."

"Why must you always-!" Maedhros swallowed the rest of that sentence. Curufin was watching him with that cool, almost incurious gaze, like he knew exactly what Maedhros was going to say and do and was just waiting for him to make his move, response already planned. He needed to…this wasn't going to go as Curufin wanted it to. It _wasn't._ "Please, Kurvo. Humor me, at least."

Curufin looked away, eyes shifting to look out the window on the street below. "It doesn't matter, Nelyo. It's not important."

"You and Tyelko never used to fight."

"Yes, well. A great many things have changed, haven't they?" Curufin's voice sounded, suddenly, faintly tired. "Apparently that is one of them."

Maedhros sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose, then pinched it between two fingers. "I wish you wouldn't shut me out. I hardly see you."

"It's not just you," Curufin said, calmly. "All of you, really. You're not the only one who would rather not have to deal with...all of this. No. I am not about to disintegrate, or have a breakdown. Save me your concern and spend it on someone else."

_You would spurn an offer of water if you were on fire, brother,_ Maedhros thought. _Forgive me if I do not trust your words._ "You would not tell me if you were."

"Likely not."

Maedhros sighed. "Kurvo…"

"Leave it, Nelyo. There's nothing you can do." Kurvo turned his back resolutely. And that was just it, wasn't it, that there was nothing he could do.

"I'll leave you to your reading," he said quietly.

"Close the door on your way out."

~.~

There had been no word from the Valar. No grand sentencing. One day they had simply found themselves here, equipped with the tools to live in this new mortal world. Well. More or less.

"It's a damn sight better than Mandos," Caranthir had said, and most of Maedhros' brothers, at least, seemed to agree with that. If not, perhaps, by much.

Maedhros tried to count his blessings. He had most of his brothers with him again. He had two hands, though he kept forgetting that he could use the right. It was the little things.

At the beginning, he'd thought Maglor would come to find them. That they would all be together and set things right, try again, do better. Make up for everything they'd done wrong before. Do penance, make amends.

He'd realized quickly that this wasn't a fresh start. It wasn't even a punishment. It was just…life. Messy and ugly and difficult, and he was floundering as much as he ever had.

It took him longer to realize that Maglor wasn't coming.

~.~

Every so often Celegorm's left hand twitched like he was reaching for something, fingers curling into thin air for a moment before dropping back to his side. Maedhros wondered if his brother knew he was doing it, knew that even still after all this time he was reaching out thoughtlessly to the dog that had been his constant companion for so long.

"I shouldn't have lost my temper," Celegorm said, his eyes lowered to the floor, away from Maedhros. "I know that. I'm sorry."

Maedhros resisted the urge to rub at his eyes. He could feel a headache coming on, a little at a time. "I didn't come up here for you to…you don't need to apologize. Can you tell me why you argued?"

Celegorm's hand did that little twitch again. He looked at it as though startled, and then pulled it back in and folded his hands together like he could keep them from wandering that way. "It wasn't anything important. Anything serious. It was just…I don't know. I'm sorry."

Maedhros wondered, as he often did, if Celegorm knew how much he looked like a scolded puppy when he got that expression. He shook his head.

"With how much you and Kurvo are both avoiding the subject, I'm starting to wonder if it was about me."

Celegorm's head shot up. "No!" he said, sounding genuinely appalled. "No, it's not – that's not-"

"Hush, Tyelko," Maedhros said wearily. "I was joking. I do that sometimes. Still." If seldom. They'd become a grim, morbid lot, their jests all touched with death and a little too much truth. He remembered his brothers as laughing. Or he might have, once; the memory was now blurred and indistinct. "If you don't want to tell me…fine. I just wanted to know what the problem was. If I could help. You know how I worry."

"I know," said Celegorm, and then, eyes moving a little away, "You shouldn't."

"Why not?"

"You don't have to be our minder," his younger brother said, nearly mumbled. "Or – or you shouldn't have to be, just because you think you're responsible for - this."

A number of people made the mistake of thinking Celegorm stupid. With the dulling of his memory by time, Maedhros had begun to think it as well, or at least in relative terms, but that was Celegorm. Seeing more than he said, and so very good at picking out what someone was thinking or feeling. It had used to drive Maglor mad. Private, secretive Maglor.

_I wonder where you are, _Maedhros thought, and then pushed that away. "I never said it was my fault."

"You don't need to say it. I can see it in the way you look at us."

"I look at you as I always have."

"No," said Celegorm, and chewed his lip. His eyes were wide and a little damp. Dog's eyes. "You look at us like you've seen us die and keep expecting us all to do it again if you look away. You look at us like someone gave us to you as if we were a bag of abandoned kittens and you don't really know what to do but there's no one else to help."

It was, Maedhros thought, and uncomfortably apt metaphor. "I'm your older brother. It's my sole purpose in life to look after you, didn't you know?"

Celegorm looked upset again. "No, that's not – that's not right. It's not fair. You can't do everything by yourself."

_I don't see the rest of you standing up. _"And that's why I need you to try to get along with each other," Maedhros said, keeping his voice cautiously even. "So at least there's that-"

"With Maglor not here I should be helping more," Celegorm said, almost anguished, and Maedhros felt a sudden surge of anger welling up that made him want to say _you're not Maglor, you can't be Maglor, I don't need you I need him. _

But that was more than just cruel. "We're all doing what we can," he said, instead. "It's…hard. I know it's hard."

"You deserve better than this," Celegorm said earnestly. And then again, more firmly, "It's not your fault."

This time he couldn't keep it back. "It's not my-" Maedhros choked on a laugh that he knew would come out hysterical. "—no, Tyelko, I'm sorry, but that's not true. This is my fault. I damned myself as much as – maybe more than – any of you. You can't take that from me."

Celegorm's brows pulled together and he started to frown. "That's not-"

"It _is _true," Maedhros said, and stood up jerkily. "You and Kurvo should make up. We can't…we can't fight each other now."

"Why not," Celegorm muttered, his expression stormy. "It's not like there's any reason to-"

"We just _can't,_" Maedhros said, and left, closing the door a little too hard behind them. _If we fall apart now, _he couldn't say, _what is there? Without each other, we're nothing. I'm nothing._

_And then what's the point?_

_What's the point of any of this?_

For all his brothers mocked him for it, there was something soothing about his work. The monotony of it, the sheer harmlessness – no lives in his hands, no battles to be fought and lost, no great matters to be decided. Just him and an order of a drink that might be redone with no great trouble if it was wrong.

It was…nice, to have so little resting on his shoulders.

He found a sort of calm, in the work, mundane and dull and unimportant. Calm he never had otherwise. Calm none of them had. They all adjusted in their own ways, but none of them well. All of them…teetering. Strange. Out of place.

He liked his Secondborn coworkers. He liked his Secondborn supervisor, Leah, with her friendly concern and quick smile. Sometimes he laid awake at night and wondered if there was something that he ought to be doing, some grand gesture that he ought to enact to ensure that his crimes were forgiven, but he could come up with nothing.

In the end it seemed best to just keep on as he was.

~.~

The twins were in the kitchen when Maedhros came down. They sat shoulder to shoulder at the island, the way they leaned into each other barely perceptible. They were almost never apart, like when they'd been little, but there was a desperation to it now. To the way Amrod still sometimes reached out and grabbed at Amras' sleeve, or arm, as though reassuring himself that he was still there. Still real.

They both looked up. Amras tried for a smile. "Hey, Russandol. How was work?"

_Easier to deal with than home, _Maedhros thought tiredly. "F-Good," he amended. Another word, perhaps, might be less conspicuous. "Same as it usually is. How're you two?"

"Bored," Amrod said, making a face.

"I told him we should do a crafts project," Amras said, perfectly straight faced. Amrod elbowed him in the ribs.

"'Cause that sounds like fun. What would we even make?"

"A family portrait," Amras said cheerfully, "Out of noodles." Maedhros could feel himself starting to smile, just a little.

"Noodles? Why would we make it out of noodles?"

"I don't know. It's a thing people do. It'll be a noodle picture. We'll stick it together with glue. Or tape. I like tape better. Do you know how long it took to get that out of my hair?"

"I still maintain that one was your fault," Amrod said haughtily. Maedhros thought sometimes that the twins were the happiest out of any of them about this. They had each other again, after all. It was probably more than they'd expected to get.

They were both looking at him, he realized suddenly, and stiffened. "What?" he said, perhaps too sharply. Amrod winced.

"You look a little peaky," Amras said quietly, after a moment of silence. Maedhros scrubbed a hand through his hair. He was still unused to having it so short, but wearing it long had been too conspicuous.

"Do any of us sleep well?" he asked, only a little sardonic. Amrod made a face.

"Not really the point," he said, and opened his mouth, then winced again. "Ow," he said, to Amras, who didn't blush in the slightest as he drew his foot back from kicking his twin's shin.

"Tyelko's going to help us make cookies tomorrow. He promised. Want to join?" Amras waggled his eyebrows. Maedhros almost wanted to laugh, helplessly.

"I'm afraid I have work," he said apologetically.

"You could take a day off," Amrod suggested.

"I really couldn't."

Amrod's expression shifted, became slightly belligerent. Maedhros tensed. "Why not? Can't you-" But he cut off, suddenly, glancing down. Maedhros followed his gaze to see Amras' hand laid lightly on his arm.

"We'll save some for you," his youngest brother said, and there was something so gentle to his voice that Maedhros felt sick. Was this what he had come to? His youngest brother, looking at him like he might break. And he could not deny the possibility. "Make sure Moryo doesn't eat all of them."

"You two both," Maedhros began, and then had to look away. "—thank you," he said, and wasn't sure if it was just for the cookies.

"Don't be an idiot, Maitimo," said Amrod, suddenly, apparently no longer able to restrain himself. Maedhros looked back up and forced a smile on his face.

"I'll do my best."

~.~

"What are we supposed to do?"

Oddly enough, it'd been Celegorm to ask first. Or maybe not so odd after all; Celegorm liked to have direction, liked to have certainty and purpose and needed, often, to be given it. Sometimes Maedhros wondered what that energy and passion might have done, directed to other ends than those they came to.

He wondered it about all his brothers.

"Are we supposed to do anything?" Was Caranthir's response, dry and almost careless. "It seems plain to me we've been cast out to do as we please. Carve out our lives as we can among these mortals. Typical Valar." He spat. Curufin had looked up from where he was examining some of the stone-working.

"Please refrain, brother. That's vulgar."

"I'll be vulgar all I like," said Caranthir, nearly petulantly. "What did you think this was, Tyelko, some kind of penance?"

Celegorm's silence said he'd thought of it. Thought of it, Maedhros thought, and then pushed the idea away. "Who's to say it isn't," he broke in, before anyone else could say anything. The twins, folded together and murmuring to each other under their breaths, looked up at him. "Who's to say this isn't a chance to…to…"

Make up for our sins? Even in his mind it sounded foolish. Curufin coughed a laugh.

"For what? So we can be forgiven? I think the Valar have shown clearly enough how disinclined they are to that. How long has it been?"

Maedhros had fallen silent. So long. Too long. But he held that hope in his heart, privately. Maybe, maybe…

Without speaking of it, the bedroom next to his was left empty. Locked, but empty. Waiting.


	2. Chapter 2

"Are you sure you're all right?" Leah asked as Maedhros fumbled to tie his apron on, a dull headache starting behind his eyes.

He'd slept poorly again the night before, his dreams this time full of Fingon as he'd last seen him, his crumpled body on its feet and swaying. _You let me die,_ his cousin's corpse had said, with a voice like death. _You let me die. Why didn't you save me?_

And when Maedhros had opened his mouth to answer, he found with horror that he'd lost the voice with which to do so. In the distance someone was laughing, hideous and deep. It sounded like Morgoth.

"Quite sure," he said, pulling himself decisively together. "Just up late reading." He gave her a sheepish smile. She didn't seem to believe him. Or at least looked severely dubious.

"I know it's none of my business," she said finally. Maedhros bit back the urge to snap indeed it is not. "You're a nice guy, and I worry."

_You wouldn't,_ Maedhros thought,_ if you knew what I'd done. You'd recoil in disgust from the blood that soaks my hands._ He looked away. "Thank you," he said, "But you really don't need to. I'll be all right."

And he would be. That much was true. He _would_ be.

~.~

Maedhros came home to a shouting match.

It had been a long day at work. Three customers who had insisted he'd gotten their orders wrong (he hadn't) and screaming children moving through, their shrill cries like gulls. Or perhaps twins, starving to death under the trees at Doriath, where he had failed to find them.

He could never be quite sure.

Caranthir and Celegorm were yelling at each other in the front room. Maedhros stopped just inside the doorway, where no one seemed to have noticed him yet.

"—do you think you're doing?" Celegorm was saying, voice raised and sharp. "You think you can just bring home some woman-"

"I can do what I like," Caranthir nearly roared. "Who's to say otherwise? You do not get to tell me how to manage my personal affairs, you of all people-"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

'Some woman,' Maedhros found standing a safe distance from both of his brothers, looking somewhere between wary and confused. "I can go," she said, taking a step back toward the door.

"No," Caranthir snapped, "Don't go anywhere, and don't listen to my _brother_ he doesn't get any say in this-"

"I'm your elder, you ass!" Celegorm looked tense and agitated. "And I'm saying-"

"I hear what you're saying, that doesn't mean I have to _mind_ it. Elder, not eldest, and I've never taken orders from you."

I should step in, Maedhros thought dully. I should stop this. He didn't quite have the energy. Almost just wanted to turn and walk back out the front door, walk out and keep walking and not stop, keep going as long as there was road to walk along. Maybe somewhere along the way he'd find Maglor.

"Maybe if you got your head out of your ass and paid attention to something other than your_ cock_-"

Caranthir flushed bright red, the color intense in his face. The woman Caranthir had apparently brought home was watching, slightly open mouthed in either awe or horror. "Just because you've decided to spend the rest of eternity celibate doesn't mean I have to. Opposite, really, I'm pretty sure Irissë isn't keeping her dress on-"

"Don't talk about her like that," Celegorm growled.

"Why not?" Caranthir said. "Just because she dumped you-"

The wall rattled as Celegorm slammed Caranthir bodily into it, hand fisted in his shirt and lips nearly white. "_Don't,_" he said, voice almost vibrating, whole body almost vibrating, and Caranthir fell abruptly silent, even through his half-drunk haze looking faintly nervous.

"Go home," Maedhros told the young woman edging nervously toward the door, finally moving. Finally responding. She needed no further urging. "Tyelko," he said, after the door slammed behind her. "If you'd calm down?"

"Tell him to take it back," Celegorm said, and then snarled at Caranthir, "Take it back."

"He's not wrong," said Curufin from the stairs. Maedhros bit back the urge to curse. Celegorm's head swiveled round.

"Not wrong about what," he said, voice dangerously flat.

"Not wrong about Irissë," Curufin clarified, his voice almost innocently mild. "She was always free with her affections, I don't doubt that she's turned to…other places for the attention she craved…"

Celegorm released Caranthir to wheel with an incoherent snarl. Maedhros had the feeling of watching something spin hopelessly out of control, and he with no way to stop it. He almost didn't want to, almost wanted to sit down and just watch and accept that they were never going to do anything but lose everything.

The doorbell rang, and they all froze.

"I'll get it," Celegorm snapped, almost vibrating. "It's probably that _girl_ of yours again-" He strode over and jerked the door open, and froze. Maedhros couldn't see the expression on his face, but he did see his brother wobble.

"Who," Caranthir started to ask, his voice sharp too, and then fell silent as a very large dog with wiry grey hair pushed through the doorway, past Celegorm and into the house. His eyes were calm and dark and intelligent, his back nearly as high as Celegorm's waist.

"Huan?" said Celegorm, in a voice that was breaking. His face had suddenly gone blank. Even more than Ireth, here was the name they never spoke. Maedhros had to look away from his brother, who seemed to tremble with the fight to hold still. "But you…"

The great dog padded across the room and stood in front of Celegorm, looking up at him. Celegorm looked like he was going to tremble out of his skin.

Curufin was standing up a little too straight, his eyes fixed on the pair. "What is he doing here," Curufin said, his voice suddenly sharp. "Is this some new device of the Valar-"

"Shut up," Celegorm said, very quietly, and everyone in the room blinked. Curufin looked blankly, completely startled. Celegorm sank slowly to his knees and extended a hand, slowly, as though to a strange dog but even with strange dogs Celegorm was never so cautious. Or had never been.

For a long time, he'd avoided them, as though he feared their reaction.

"Huan," Celegorm said again, and Maedhros forced himself into motion, caught his brothers' eyes and gestured to the stairs. To his relief, they followed his lead, and he retreated upstairs with them, glancing down once more to see his younger brother with his arms around that great hound's neck, face buried in his fur.

~.~

It was a quiet evening. Caranthir and Curufin trailed off to their respective rooms, Curufin seeming distantly lost, Caranthir still in a poor mood. Maedhros remained curled up on the couch before the dormant TV, and was joined, at some length, by his two youngest brothers.

"Huan's back," he told them. "Or – well. He was. He and Tyelko are out right now."

"That's good?" said Amras, though he didn't sound wholly sure of it. Maedhros nodded, slowly.

"I think it might be." That Huan had come at all…that he had let Celegorm embrace him. He had to think it was a good thing. _Let him have his happiness. At least a small measure of it_.

(And your happiness?)

The twins looked at each other and then Amrod moved to his other side so they were bracketing him, a head leaning on each of his shoulders. They looked young, curled up like that; like the children he could remember them being. "Watch a movie with us?" Amras asked.

"A – what?"

"You haven't watched any movies?" Amrod sounded scandalized. "What do you do with your time?"

"Worries," Amras said from his other side.

"And frets," Amrod added. "Well, enough of that. The movies are quite entertaining. We have been hoarding a few."

"'Fern Gully' is our favorite," Amras said with pride. "Go get it, we can watch that. Maybe Moryo will come join us. Or Kurvo."

"I doubt it," Maedhros said, but he let Amrod get up and pad down the hall. When the quiet sound of his feet faded, Amras breathed out a quiet sigh.

"I'm sorry, brother," he said, suddenly. Maedhros blinked at him.

"You're sorry? What for?"

"I haven't been a very good brother since coming back. Haven't been very helpful to you. And I'm sorry, because I've known that you need it, I just…"

"Telvo," Maedhros cut in. "You don't need to apologize to me. You don't…owe me anything. And you've…you and Pityo. It's good to see you together again, and I can't even begin to understand how it is for you...both. He needs you."

"Pityo needs me," Amras agreed. "But so do you."

Amrod came back, then, and Amras fell silent. Maedhros didn't push him further, not sure what to say, and settled in between his younger brothers to watch their movie.

~.~

It was a silly tale. Relatively frivolous, all bright colors and things tied up neatly at the end. It was, indeed, soothing. Neither Moryo nor Kurvo did come to join them.

The twins retreated after the movie was over, after extracting a promise that Maedhros would sleep, and sleep for a good long time. Maedhros sat alone, thinking. Curufin came down, after roughly an hour, something like worry between his eyebrows.

"Tyelko and his hound not back yet?"

"No," Maedhros said. "Not yet." That frownlike thing between Curufin's eyebrows deepend.

"You don't seem concerned."

"I'm not." Maedhros shrugged one shoulder. "Huan will look after him."

"Unless, of course, he's been sent by the Valar for some _other_ reason." Maedhros opened his half closed eyes and gave Curufin a sharp look.

"Such as what? Don't subscribe evil motives to others, Kurvo. It only reflects poorly on you." Curufin's expression went flat, and Maedhros regretted saying it almost immediately. "I only mean to say-"

"You have made yourself clear," Curufin said, icily cold. He turned his back, ramrod straight. "I shall speak to you later, I suppose."

Maedhros sighed, looking after him. He wondered if he was a failure as a brother. Celegorm was probably speaking more to a dog than he had to him. He only seemed able to anger and alienate Curufin further. Caranthir seemed to be no crankier than usual, but…

Maglor, he couldn't help but think, would have known. It was probably not true, but the thought came to him anyway.

Celegorm came back with Huan late in the night. He was quiet, and seemed spent. Was filthy, wet, and covered in sand. He paused, and just looked at Maedhros for a while, dog at his heels. Maedhros stood up slowly. "You're back."

Celegorm nodded, seeming half distracted. "—I am. Did you stay up waiting for me?"

"No." Celegorm frowned at him, and Maedhros managed a lopsided smile. "Maybe a little. You were gone for a long time."

"We…talked." Celegorm glanced at Huan, and snorted. "Well – I talked." For a long time, Maedhros thought to himself, and indeed Celegorm's voice did sound faintly hoarse. "I guess I…had a lot to say."

Maedhros hesitated, but he needed to ask. "Do you feel better for it?" Celegorm frowned, and then that faded away and he just looked faintly…lost, and tired. Maedhros could picture the way he'd used to smile, so vividly. Broad and bright and not just with his whole face but his whole body. How long had it been since he'd seen that smile?

Celegorm shook his head. "No," he said, after a moment. "Not really." He folded to the carpet, and leaned into Huan who flopped down next to him, one arm over great grey shoulders, and was quiet, eyes somewhere far distant.

"Tyelko?" he said, carefully.

"It's going to be all right," Celegorm said, quietly, and then shook his head. "Well, no, it isn't, but it's – it'll be – it'll be enough, Nelyo. I think. We'll make it be enough."

_Will it be enough?_ Maedhros thought. _How? How will it ever…_

~.~

Sometimes he thought he'd lived his whole life again, in dreams. From death to his earliest memory, it all came back, soaked through with blood and fire.

Maedhros was so tired of both.

He fell asleep on the couch on a weekend afternoon roughly a week after Huan came back, and jerked flailing out of a dream of cutting down his younger brothers in the harbor at Alqualondë, Maglor behind him furiously yelling for him to stop. He hadn't even realized who he was killing until he'd cut Amras' throat.

Curufin was watching him from a chair across the room. Maedhros let out a long breath.

"Dreams?" Curufin said casually. Maedhros shrugged.

"Just dreams."

"I don't doubt you have plenty to dream about." The expression on Curufin's face made him uneasy. He'd seen it before, the kind of singular focus and intensity that Curufin had when he had some specific aim in mind.

"Don't we all?" he said, and put a hand over his eyes. _Is it too much to ask,_ he thought, _that I not dream, just for one night?_

Curufin's head tipped a fraction to the side. "What were you dreaming about?"

_That I killed you all. Which I did, didn't I? Or at least I let you die. _"Does it matter?"

"I'm curious."

"You know what they say about curiosity," Maedhros said. This was going somewhere, and he didn't know where it was.

"I don't believe it was what killed me," Curufin drawled. "Say rather Dior's sword." Maedhros resisted the urge to flinch. "What are you trying to do, Nelyo?" he said, after a moment. He blinked.

"What am I…"

"Trying to do, yes." Curufin leaned back in the chair and stretched his legs out. "You have an aim, don't you? Some sort of purpose, some idea of where you're trying to get…what is it?"

Maedhros frowned. "Why do I need to-"

"Because you always do. You need a goal, something to pin your hopes to, to look ahead to. Is it redemption you're hoping for? The Valar to descend and bestow upon you their benediction once more?" Curufin's voice was scornful. Maedhros felt himself bristle.

"I'm not an idiot, Kurvo. I know that's not going to happen."

"But you'd like it to, wouldn't you?" Curufin's voice was sharp, precise. "You yearn to be forgiven, to be drawn back into the embrace of the Valar."

Caranthir had come down, Maedhros realized. He was standing on the stairs, watching. "Don't put words in my mouth," he said, tightly. "I don't want-"

"You're content with this, then? This ordinary life you've put on like a cloak, working human hours, doing human jobs?" Curufin scoffed. "What _father_ would think."

"Father is dead," Maedhros said, flat and almost vicious. Curufin didn't flinch.

"And we are not. We can still do him proud. Do you think he would be proud of you, Maitimo?"

"As though the lot of you are any better," Maedhros snapped. "You don't do anything, you sit around and – and fight with each other and read pornography and wallow uselessly-" Celegorm was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, and Maedhros was beginning to feel he'd been ambushed.

"This isn't about anyone but you, Nelyo." Curufin's voice was calm, level. "What is it you want? You want us all to be like you, crawling groveling into the mortal world, forgetting what we were, what we are? Is that what you want for us, your brothers?"

His temper was rising. _I don't deserve this, _he thought, and then right on that thought's heels, _yes, you do._ The twins had joined Caranthir on the stairs.

"What do you want me to say?" he demanded. "I have no more answers than any of you do, I'm just trying my best, as I always have-"

Curufin snorted. "This is your _best?_"

His temper snapped. "I wish I were dead!" Maedhros yelled, at all of them, the words boiling up his throat and bursting free. "I was dead and everything was _fine_, I didn't have to do this any more, I didn't have to deal with any of _you_, I didn't have to – I could just be _done._"

They were all staring at him, faces reading blank, appalled horror – or in Curufin's case, just blank, though there was a flicker of something Maedhros thought was pity, well hidden.

"I don't want to lose you all again," Maedhros said, and his voice cracked. "I can't – I _can't._"

"Brother," said Celegorm, quietly, and took a step forward. There was a roaring in his ears.

"I'm sorry," he thought he heard Curufin say, but that couldn't be right. Curufin never apologized. Never. _See what you've done. See the pain in their eyes, you've hurt them. Now they know they're not enough, and never were, to hold you back from death. _

He turned and fled, to the solitude of his room, desperately needing no one to find him. He locked the door. Someone tried it, once, but they moved on after only a moment's hesitation, and Maedhros curled into himself and breathed ragged, uneven breaths, told himself that he was fine. _Fine._

~.~

They treated him like glass.

One of them watching him at all times, somewhat less than subtle. They kept their voices low in his presence, and if there were arguments they were hushed and held mostly out of earshot. For his part, Maedhros tried to pretend he noticed nothing.

"You're off work for the week," Caranthir informed him, gruffly. "I called in sick for you."

"I want to work," Maedhros said quietly, already knowing it'd be useless. Caranthir glanced away, not seeming to want to look right at him.

"Not this week."

"What are you afraid I'll do?" Maedhros asked dully. "I have accepted…I am not going to abandon you. Any of you."

"Good," Caranthir said shortly. "If you did, Kurvo and I would probably kill each other in a week, and Tyelko would kill himself. By accident," he added, quickly, and then winced. "Damn-"

"I'm not fragile," Maedhros said, not quite snapped. Too tired to summon anger. "You needn't treat me like it."

"You'll forgive me if I don't really believe you on that one," Caranthir said, nearly a drawl. "Since you're not exactly the most impartial judge of 'fine' around here. Take a nap?"

Maedhros half wanted to laugh and half wanted to weep. He settled for putting his face in his hands. None of them seemed to have much idea of what to do, or what they wanted, or what would help. They just…closed ranks. Caranthir and Curufin didn't argue. Celegorm seemed to be trying for almost too cheerful whenever Maedhros saw him, as though to prove that he was in no need of worry.

Eventually, Maedhros slept.

Once he managed to, it was as though he couldn't stop. The weariness sunk deep into his bones that he'd been living with for what felt like forever dragged him under and he dropped off on the couch, in the middle of the morning, in the late afternoon. Just…sleeping, apparently too deeply to dream.

He ate in between, his brothers watching to be sure that he did. He took enough to appease them, and then slept again.

Sometimes he dreamed of Maglor.

It passed, eventually. Mostly. The weariness faded back to manageable levels. He went back to work, to his old schedule. It was difficult, perhaps, to get out of bed in the mornings, but Maedhros' dreams were quiet, and he moved through his life with a dull, lackluster kind of disinterest.

His brothers still watched him with a nervousness that was not quite wariness. A caution that was not quite fear. He wished he could tell them it was needless, but Maedhros was not certain enough of his ability to lie.

~.~

He was reading a Greek tragedy with no small sense of irony on a humid day in mid-July when the doorbell rang.

Maedhros rose with a sigh and went to the front door, rubbing his forehead. "I doubt that's for me," he called, but to no answer. It was early, he supposed. Maybe they slept, still. His mornings; one of the few times he was not watched by five pairs of nervous eyes.

_I should sleep._

Maedhros shook the thought away and opened the door, wearily prepared to apologize, or pay for the pizza the twins had ordered, or…

Maedhros blinked. It was a familiar face looking at him. Hair slightly unkempt and pulled back in an unfamiliar style, face slightly too thin and wearing jeans and a t-shirt, but Maedhros would know those eyes anywhere. He shifted, slightly, suddenly looking uncertain.

"Kano," Maedhros said helplessly.

"Yeah," said Maglor. "It's me."

"I thought…" Maedhros trailed off. You hated me. You were dead. You were never coming back (coming home).

Maglor's smile was crooked and only faintly unhappy. "Well…I guess not. Hi, Nelyo. I thought maybe it was…time I showed up."

_I can do this,_ Maedhros told himself, as he reached out and pulled his younger brother into a hug for the first time in millenia. _I can do this,_ and for the first time since he'd woken in this strange new world, it didn't feel wholly like a lie.


End file.
